Water Sport
Swanage bay provides a well sheltered environment for a range of watersports, including swimming, kayaking, canoeing, sailing, windsurfing and jetskiing.
Scuba diving takes place under the piers and at nearby coastal wrecks. Swanage is considered by many to be the home of British scuba diving. It is one of the most popular sea water training sites for dive schools and clubs to take trainee divers due to the sheltered conditions within the bay. The dive school situated on the pier was the first dive school in Great Britain.
Swanage Sailing Club was established in 1935 and is located to the immediate south of the pier.
Swanage Sea Rowing Club, formed in 2001 has been highly successful and currently has over 100 members and four Cornish pilot gigs of its own, funded through donations. Competitions take place at regattas of which the club attends several per year, including the World Pilot Gig Championships held on the Isles of Scilly.
There are two public swimming pools, one at the Swanage Bay View campsite, and another at Ulwell Caravan Park. Both offer swimming lessons and aqua aerobic sessions.
Read more about this topic: Swanage, Sport and Recreation
Famous quotes containing the words water and/or sport:
“We’ve only just begun to learn about the water and its secrets, just as we’ve only touched on outer space. We don’t entirely rule out the possibility that there might be some form of life on another planet. Then why not some entirely different form of life in a world we already know is inhabited by millions of living creatures?”
—Harry Essex (b. 1910)
“For generations, a wide range of shooting in Northern Ireland has provided all sections of the population with a pastime which ... has occupied a great deal of leisure time. Unlike many other countries, the outstanding characteristic of the sport has been that it was not confined to any one class.”
—Northern Irish Tourist Board. quoted in New Statesman (London, Aug. 29, 1969)